Have your say on how Stonehenge and Avebury are managed

There’s just time (until the end of the month) to have your say on a formal British document to be submitted to UNESCO laying out, inter alia, how you think Stonehenge and Avebury ought to be managed (click on the link in the title).

Avebury: A Journey to the Past by Gordon Kingston

Part 1 of Gordon's personal, and very sensitive account, of his homecoming journey to Avebury appears on the Heritage Journal today. Part 2 will appear on Tuesday, 28 September and Part 3 on Thursday, 30 September.

Avebury area: Electricity cables finally removed


Overton Hill barrows (the overhead electric cables have now gone).
Image credit Moss

"The gateway to the Avebury World Heritage Site has been transformed after work to bury unsightly electricity cables was completed..."

"The project, which started over three years ago, was made possible by a partnership involving Wiltshire Council, the National Trust, North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding National Beauty, English Heritage and local farmers. Funding for the work was provided by Scottish and Southern Electricity..."

"The new cables have been buried underneath the major monuments at Overton Hills Seven Barrows Bronze Age barrow cemetery and beneath the Neolithic West Kennet Avenue which originally linked Avebury Stone Circle to the Sanctuary.

"Scottish and Southern Electricity employed archaeologists to examine all the entry and exit points for the moleing machinery to check for any archaeological remains.

"Their work has been monitored by Dr Nick Snashall, National Trust archaeologist who said: “A major eyesore has been eliminated from the World Heritage Site with the removal or these power cables, bringing the landscape closer to its ancient appearance. We’ve also been able to record all the archaeology found during the works, which adds to our story of the development of Avebury.”"

More here -

Richard Jefferies (1848-1887)

Richard Jefferies was a novelist, naturalist and a mystic; he grew up in a house (now the Richard Jefferies Museum) close to Coate Water on the outskirts of Swindon. In his book, Wildlife in a Southern County, published in 1879, Jefferies writes of the Ridgeway -

A broad green track runs for many a long, long mile across the downs, now following the ridges, now winding past at the foot of a grassy slope, then stretching away through a cornfield and fallow. It is distinct from the wagon-tracks which cross it here and there, for these are local only, and, if traced up, land the wayfarer presently in a maze of fields, or end abruptly in the rickyard of a lone farmhouse. It is distinct from the hard roads of modern construction which also at wide intervals cross its course, dusty and glaringly white in the sunshine... With varying width, from twenty to fifty yards, it runs like a green ribbon... a width that allows a flock of sheep to travel easily side by side.

Richard Jefferies (1848-1887)